


On the Other Side of the World

by DarlingJenny



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Anyone else ship these two?, F/M, Post-Season 2, The rest of the gang does appear eventually, or is it just me?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 04:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15598308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingJenny/pseuds/DarlingJenny
Summary: After quitting the Phoenix Foundation, Mac decides to disappear for a while so he can regroup and decide what to do next . . . only to be accidentally discovered by Jill Morgan, of all people. Having his former co-worker around isn't what he expected or wanted, but it might turn out to be exactly what he needs.





	On the Other Side of the World

**Author's Note:**

> bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid has a fabulous story, [Flirtations,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253463) where Riley tells Mac that all the lab techs at the Phoenix are in love with him, including Jill, and in that moment I started shipping Mac and Jill like FedEx. It really takes very little to get me hooked on a ship. :) I don't know if I'm the only person who ships these two, but I thought they deserved a story.
> 
> This is set between seasons 2 and 3 and has already been canonballed by some of the sneak peeks for the season premiere, but at the time I started writing it, it was all still plausible. So I'm posting it anyway. :)

o.o.o

Sometimes even the other side of the world isn't far enough away for a person to disappear.

—is what Angus MacGyver thinks on the thirty-sixth day of his self-imposed exile as he and Jill Morgan stare at each other in shock across the observation deck of the Taipei 101.

"Did they send you after me?" he asks steadily (and hates the tiny part of him that hopes it's true, that she's done what that treacherous part of him hasn't managed to do yet: come up with some way to convince him that it's time to go home to Los Angeles). But he knows the answer even before her eyebrows fly up in surprise and denial. Because no one knows where he is; he made sure of that. And because even if they did, why on earth would they send Jill, of all people, to bring him home?

"No, I had no idea you were here," she assures him. "I mean, no one knows, do they?"

Jack knows he's in Asia, but that's it; Mac has Riley and Matty's solemn promises that they won't track him down unless it's an emergency. He has no such promise from his father, having not talked to the man since quitting the Phoenix Foundation, so he supposes it's likely that James MacGyver used his spy skills to figure out where his son went. But if he did, he hasn’t done anything with the information yet. "Then what are you doing here?"

"Work," she says. "I've been corresponding with a palynologist at National Taiwan University for over a year on her new system for identifying pollen biomarkers, and she finally invited me to come visit her lab. I genuinely had no idea you were in Taipei." And then she grimaces. "Sorry, by the way; Jack said you wanted to be left alone, and I swear, I didn't mean to—"

"I know," Mac says, and manages to muster up a kind smile, because Jill seems the type to fret herself to flinders over something like this. "And how long are you in Taiwan?"

"Three weeks," is her answer, and the part of him that wanted distance is a little annoyed but the part of him that's apparently been craving seeing a familiar face is pleased. "Staying at the university."

"That's a long time to loan you out," Mac remarks, and is surprised when a pleased smile crosses Jill's face.

"I have you to thank for that, actually. Remember your idea to track the money from that counterfeiting ring with microbial forensics? Matty was so impressed by how that turned out that when I proposed this trip to her, all I had to do was explain that this science sort of works like that and she was 100% on board."

Mac makes a face. "Sort of," he says dubiously, and Jill laughs.

"Obviously not, but they’re similar enough, from a layperson's point of view. Easier to say that than explain it all to Matty. And she found the ‘it’s like microbial forensics’ explanation very compelling."

And for a moment he's caught up in imagining how Matty would react if Jill had tried to explain the finer details of microbial forensics and forensic palynology, and for that moment he is amused and nostalgic and sad. But then a large tour group bustles by, the tour leader waving a flag to be seen and shouting at her group in Mandarin, and Mac is jostled from his reminiscing.

"Well, I'm glad to have been part of the reason your visit got approved." Secretly he wonders if that's more true than she realizes; if his father does know where he is, maybe the approval for Jill's trip to Taipei came down from Oversight . . . but that's probably just him being paranoid. If James wanted to send someone to convince Mac to come back to LA, he would have sent Jack or Riley or Bozer. Not the cheerful lab tech who falls a bit higher than "coworker" but a fair bit lower than "friend" on Mac's list.

"So now you're sightseeing?"

She grins. "I don't officially start until Monday, and I've never been to Taiwan, so I took a couple days of vacation to come out here early. See what the Beautiful Island has to offer."

"The Beautiful Island?" he repeats.

"That's what a guidebook I read called it," she explains. "Apparently the old Portuguese name for it was Formosa, from a phrase meaning 'beautiful island.'"

Of course Jill has read guidebooks about Taiwan. Quite unlike Mac, who chose the island based on the fact that he's never had an assignment here and that he once saw an interesting documentary about the very building he's currently standing in, and who did no research whatsoever before packing a bag and heading to Taipei with a false passport.

"So what brings you to the Taipei 101?" she asks, then winces. "Sorry. Was that nosy? I didn't mean to . . ."

He breaks in before her self-flagellation can go too far. "I like coming to this building," he explains. "This is my sixth visit since I've been here."

"Six?" she responds, and he smiles a little.

"The Taipei 101 is an engineering marvel. It has to be, to be a supertall skyscraper in an area with so many earthquakes and typhoons."

Jill looks intrigued at that. "So how do they deal with those challenges?"

Mac hesitates, and then he grins. "Come here," he says, and leads her across the floor and down a flight of stairs to an indoor observation area, several stories high, the focal point of which is a massive ball suspended from cables. "This is a tuned mass damper," he says. "Largest in the world, I believe."

He's about to explain what that means, but Jill looks at the massive ball, and then at the system of cables above it and hydraulics underneath it, and understands immediately. "It stabilizes the building against motion from wind or earthquakes," she realizes aloud. "By absorbing kinetic energy and thereby reducing the amplitude of vibration. That's brilliant."

He has to admit, he'd forgotten this about Jill—that she's clever, but she's also more than that: much like Mac, she's something of a polymath. Her professional field is forensics, but within that field, her skills are all over the place: he's personally had her do everything from analyzing microbes to restoring film to Photoshopping wedding photos. She's also becoming quite the hacker; after Riley's tutelage, she can now outclass most of the computer personnel at the Phoenix. And he knows she's also got an impressive hobbyist's knowledge of architecture, medicine and genetics. Plus, apparently, engineering and physics.

Come to think of it, it's never occurred to him until this moment how alike the two of them are.

Which might be why he does what he does. When Jill has finished examining the damper from all angles, and has watched the videos of the damper moving during earthquakes, she looks at him and he can read in her face and her movement that she's not sure what to do next. And though he would have claimed that the last thing he wanted when he woke up this morning was to be found by someone from home, he opens his mouth and finds the words "So what are you doing next?" coming out of his mouth.

She pulls out her guidebook, flips to a dog-eared page, and announces, "Chiang Kai Shek Memorial."

He hesitates. "I haven't seen that one yet. Want some company?"

And she smiles so bright that that you could read a book by it.

It makes sense, he tells himself as they make their way over to the elevator. He wouldn't have expected it, but he's felt a bit isolated since coming to Taipei. Oh, he's interacted with people here, helped a lot of them too; there's even a few he’s friendly with. But the last few years of his life have been spent with Jack Dalton glued to his side, and Bozer not far behind, and 2.7 million Taipei-ites aren't enough to fill that void. So seeing someone from home, even if it's someone he wouldn't quite call a friend, is more compelling than he'd have expected. Maybe he’s been lonelier than he’s willing to admit.

By some unspoken agreement, on the taxi ride to the memorial they speak of nothing at all sensitive: not home, not the Phoenix Foundation, not his father. He advises her on the best places in town to buy cheap but reliable electronics. She keeps him amused with a story about her terrible seatmate on the flight from LA. And when they reach the massive compound that is the memorial, they get distracted discussing the architecture and the size of it and the information about Chiang Kai Shek that Jill learned from her guidebook. Jill snaps about a hundred pictures, and Mac holds out a hand for her camera so he can get a few of her in front of the beautiful blue and white gate.

An hour after leaving the Taipei 101, they have just finished watching the changing of the guards at Chiang Kai Shek's tomb and are sitting at the top of the stairs, looking out over the view and chatting idly about this and that.

"I'm glad I finally saw it," Mac says after a minute. "This is pretty cool looking."

Jill looks at him a moment, her expression thoughtful, then agrees, "It was nice having a sightseeing buddy."

He nods. "What are your plans for the rest of the day?"

"Dinner with Dr. Wu." She glances down at her watch. "In ninety minutes. Just enough time to get back to the university, shower, and meet her."

Makes sense; it's mid-afternoon now. But he's surprised at the pang of regret that courses through him. Seeing an old co-worker on the other side of the world, when you both happen to be in the same building at the same time—the chances of that happening are a million to one, he'd wager. And he can't rely on it happening again. And he finds he doesn't want to lose her back into the faceless masses of Taipei.

It's just . . .

His reasons for leaving the Phoenix Foundation are still valid. But that doesn't mean he doesn't miss it, and his team that was more like family than friends, and the sense that he was doing genuine good in the world. And even though Jill was only ever on the edges of his life in LA, spending this afternoon with her makes him feel close to . . . close to home. He's not ready to lose that just yet.

And maybe Jill isn't ready to give up a familiar face either, because when he asks if she'd want to meet for dinner some time next week, she lights up like the sun. "That'd be great! You can show me the local haunts." And then she hesitates. "One condition, though."

He raises his eyebrows in question.

"We get a picture together here. So I remember this day of my trip." He is briefly startled by her request, and she misunderstands. "I'll make sure I don't show the picture to anyone until . . . until whenever. I just like having photographs to remember things."

This is reasonable, he supposes, so he stops a passerby and asks, in his mediocre Mandarin, if she'll take a picture. And he has to admit, it's a great picture: he and Jill, side-by-side, looking comfortable and happy in casual clothes and sunglasses, with the square and the park stretching out behind them, and at the far end of it the massive gate. They look . . . like they're close, like they’re buddies on vacation, and he wonders for a brief moment why he never bothered properly befriending Jill.

But he knows the reasons, of course; he was always so busy, with work and personal stuff. And anyway he's always been a quality over quantity type of guy where friends are concerned; he's perfectly happy with just a few close friends, and never felt the need to reach out much to anyone else at the Phoenix. Jill is just one of many lab techs with whom he was friendly but not friends.

But she's always been friends with Boze, because they use the same lab space, and through that connection has gotten closer to Riley and Jack as well. And now she's here, and he never noticed how funny she is, and she's the only familiar face he's seen in thirty-six days and, well, people dying of hunger have been known to want food.

So it's decided, then: he'll hang out with Jill while she's here.

"I know you'll be discreet," he assures her. And then he gives her the number of the cheap Taiwanese phone he's been using, and she gives him the number of the phone the university is lending her, and then they walk together down the stairs and across the square and down the street to the metro station.

And when Mac bids Jill goodbye, he's surprised at how pleased he is to know he'll see her again next week.

o.o.o

They meet on Wednesday at a noodle shop near Mac's apartment; he knows Jill assumes he picked it because it's an especially good one, but the truth is that it's one of the only restaurants he's eaten at since he's been here. He's never cared about food for food's sake, just as a means to refuel—poor Bozer's excellent cooking has always been a bit wasted on him—so when he discovered there was a noodle shop in his neighborhood that he liked, he started taking most of his meals there.

He orders his usual, and Jill bravely chooses something at random from the picture menu. While they wait for their food, Jill tells him all about her first few days at the lab, and how much she's already learned from Dr. Wu, and then she starts into the finer details of Dr. Wu's new technique; he can tell from the way she looks at him that she expects him to be as excited about it as she is. He remembers that about her from LA, come to think of it; he never thought much about it at the time, but Jill loves to geek out about science. He can think of a few times she aimed her geeking out at him, expecting him to be as excited as she was. He's ashamed to admit that he's fairly sure he never really responded with as much excitement as she clearly wanted him to.

But he's happy to geek out now, especially since Dr. Wu's research actually is quite fascinating, and then the topic drifts on to other scientific discoveries of recent years. Eventually Mac's bowl is empty, and Jill's has only a few unidentified animal bits left in it, and they've fallen into the kind of comfortable silence that he usually only feels around Jack and Bozer.

"Can I be nosy for a sec?"

Mac finds his brow furrowing as he turns to look at Jill. "Sure," he says slowly.

"Nothing major," she assures him. "Just—what have you been doing with your time since you left? You just don't strike me as the type to be happy relaxing and watching Netflix."

She's not wrong. "Reading," he says. "Running a few little experiments at my apartment." She looks surprised at the brevity of the list, and he finds himself admitting, "And giving my neighbors a hand with a few things."

That's what she was expecting to hear, he can see from the look on her face. "What kind of things?"

"Helped the kid downstairs fix his scooter, and then his dad needed help with a broken refrigerator. And then the landlady couldn't afford to hire someone to rewire the lights in the stairwell, and I couldn't let her get up there herself; she's about ninety. And then I found out the scooter kid was getting bullied at school—"

"That's what I assumed," Jill laughs. "You wouldn't be MacGyver if you weren't using your brain to help people."

He'd be lying if he claimed he wasn’t flattered by her declaration.

"What about you?" he asks. "Is it all work for you for the rest of your trip?"

"Are you kidding? I've still got my whole guidebook to work through. I think Friday after work I'm going to go to the National Palace Museum; I hear it stays open late on the weekend."

"I've been meaning to go there," Mac says without thinking.

There's an obvious response to that, and Mac can see it on the tip of Jill's tongue. He knows why she hesitates, though: he came here to get away from his old life at the Phoenix, not to go sightseeing with a Phoenix lab tech. Honestly, he's not sure if he wants her to extend the invitation or not.

Until she actually does (he assumes her natural friendliness has overcome her wariness at overstepping his boundaries). "You're welcome to come with me, if you'd like."

And he's honestly surprised at how quickly he responds "Yeah, that'd be great." And the thought crosses his mind again that deep down, he's been more lonely here in Taipei than he's been willing to admit to himself.

"Awesome," Jill beams. "Meet you there at 6:30?"

"Sounds great," he agrees with a smile.

And in that moment, sitting across from each other in a crowded Taiwanese noodle shop, seven thousand miles away from the building where they first met, Angus MacGyver and Jill Morgan become friends.

o.o.o

On Friday it's the museum, and on Saturday they take the train out to a scenic fisherman's wharf area, and by the time they visit a Buddhist temple the next Tuesday night, Mac can’t figure out why he never befriended Jill when they still worked together. Because he's grown immensely fond of her here. She's cheerful and energetic and caring and friendly and exceptionally bright; she can keep up with him on basically any topic.

And what started as a friendship of convenience—she's the only person he really knows for thousands of miles—has blossomed into something real, where he genuinely likes her for her own sake. So when she’d grabbed a passerby to snap a picture of them together at the wharf, he’d found himself passing his cell phone to the girl as well, to have his own copy. It’s the only remotely personal thing on his phone (and in his whole life in Taiwan), and he finds a strange comfort in looking at it, and he forces himself never to think about the fact that she’ll be gone in less than two weeks and he’ll be alone again.

They take advantage of the warm summer nights to visit Ximending, the large pedestrian shopping area, and after dinner at McDonald’s—“I never knew I could crave crappy American food so much,” Jill admits—she leads him to a shop that Dr. Wu recommended, to try something called baobing. They sit together at an outdoor table to eat the baobing, which turns out to be a massive mound of shaved ice, covered with sweetened condensed milk and pieces of mango, and which they both agree is amazing. She tells him about growing up in San Diego with her mom and grandpa, and the fire she accidentally started in her high school chemistry class, and crazy adventures with her college roommates, and he’s content to sit back and listen. The temperature is perfect, the sky is the gentle blue of dusk, the bustle of crowds and the lights of the shops make a pleasant backdrop, and he hasn’t been this content since arriving in Taiwan. Maybe even before that.

On Saturday, Dr. Wu has a free day, and she and a few friends take Mac and Jill along on a trip to visit a beautiful waterfall and village outside the city. It’s a lucky thing that their hosts speak English, because his Mandarin isn’t great and Jill doesn’t speak it at all. But it’s a delightful day, and it’s wonderful to feel surrounded by friendship again, and the only thing marring it is the pang of nostalgia and homesickness he feels each time the group’s laughter and good-natured ribbing reminds him of his own friends on the other side of the ocean.

Which is, perhaps, why he finds himself so emotionally open and vulnerable that night. He and Jill have go alone to a famous night market, a sprawling maze of stalls selling everything from clothing to electronics to souvenirs to food, that’s so crowded with a mix of locals and tourists that he occasionally has to keep a hand on Jill’s purse strap to keep from being separated from her. Jill buys so much that Mac warns her she’ll need to buy another suitcase to get it all home, and convinces Mac to join her in trying a dozen different food stalls until he’s so full that he kind of wants to lay down and die.

Finally the noise and the crowd gets to be too much for them, and they slip out and onto a side street, where they find themselves at a local park. “Let’s sit,” says Jill, who’s been juggling ten shopping bags for the last half hour. “I assume it’s safe here.” And she gestures across the park, where there’s a group of older people practicing tai chi in the last of the fading light.

“You mean because those guys can protect us?”

She lets out a very unladylike snort of laughter and sinks down onto the nearest bench, placing her many bags on the ground with a relieved sigh.

“You should have let me carry some,” he says, not for the first time, as he sits next to her.

“Nah, I can manage,” she says comfortably, and they fall silent.

After a moment of watching the soothing movements of the tai chi group, Jill comments, “You know, I always kind of wanted to learn martial arts.”

“Why didn’t you?” Mac asks, leaning back comfortably and stretching one arm over the back of the bench.

“I actually went to a studio once to check it out,” she says. “But you had to commit to an entire year, which I didn’t want to do . . . and there was kind of a lot of emphasis on self-control, and mind over body, and honor. Which is important, obviously, but all I really wanted to do was punch stuff.” She stops and considers. “So I guess what I really want to learn is boxing. Are there any good boxing gyms in the area?”

“That sounds like a Jack question. You should ask him,” Mac says, before realizing that they have both, for a few sentences, forgotten that they’re not in LA. “Or you could use the facilities at the Phoenix Foundation. They’re meant more for field operatives to stay in shape. But if you asked Matty, I bet she’d make an exception.”

Jill nods. “Maybe I could talk Jack into giving me some pointers. He owes me, given that he recently roped me into helping him commit a felony.”

Mac chuckles and falls silent for a moment, then quite unexpectedly finds himself saying, “My mom did martial arts.”

Jill looks over at him with surprise painted across her face, and no wonder, because in the two weeks they’ve been hanging out, he’s not said a word about his family, his past, or his personal life back in America.  “What kind?” she asks, recovering quickly, although it’s too late to pretend that the moment wasn’t awkward.

“Taekwondo. There was a studio in the neighborhood she grew up in, and she kept practicing even after I was born.”

“That’s pretty awesome,” Jill says. “I’m a big fan of ladies who can kick butt.”

Which would have been a great segue back to another, safer topic, but it’s strangely comforting to speak of his mother; he hasn’t done that in ages. “She kicked butt in a lot of ways,” he confirms. “And not just literally. She was brilliant; had a PhD in anthropology. After she had me, she had to cut down on her academic life a little, but she taught a couple courses at the local college, and still did research. I think she always meant to get back into it once I was older.”

Jill’s looking over at him with a little smile on her face. “So she was a great mom, a college professor, and a taekwondo master? She sounds kind of awesome.”

“She was,” he says, and it doesn’t hurt as much as it sometimes does, to think of her in the past tense. “I don’t remember a ton—she died when I was five—but from what I do remember, and from stories my grandpa told me, she was pretty amazing.”

She smiles but doesn’t seem to know where to take the topic next, and he can’t blame her; this is a line of his own making that he’s crossed, and he’s not sure if he wants to retreat from it rapidly, or press on down this path.

But it is nice to talk about his mother.

Jill apparently decides to press on; he’s starting to see that she looks like the quiet, bookish type, but there’s a streak of fire and steel in her, especially when it comes to helping other people. So maybe she knows talking about it is helping him. “So tell me more about your mom,” she says. “Like, what did she look like? Because I met Oversight after you left, and since then I just keep thinking you’ve got to take after your mom. Because you don’t look anything like that guy.”

“You’re right,” he laughs. “I definitely take more after her.” He thinks of the photographs he’s seen of his mom. “Very blonde. Blue eyes. Very pretty.” And then he jokes, “So I guess I don’t take after her in that way.”

“Don’t sell yourself so short,” she says, sounding perfectly serious but with laughter in her eyes. “You’re very pretty, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He laughs, even as his face feels a bit warm, wondering if Jill does actually think that he’s—well, not pretty, but attractive. Because she’s pretty, in a sweet, science-geek kind of way, and . . . well, he wouldn’t mind if she found him attractive. That’s all.

He’s probably just being vain, is what it is.

“So you were close with your grandpa too?”

“Yeah, he helped look after me until . . . my dad left, and after that he basically raised me. He was a great man.”

“Mom’s dad or dad’s dad?”

“Dad’s dad,” he says. “But not very much like his son. Not as brilliant, but a much better guy.”

She nods, and is clearly not going to press the matter, but Mac finds himself volunteering, “My mom didn’t really have any family. Her parents died when she was in college.”

Again she nods, looking thoughtful, and glances at him a few times as though working up her courage before she speaks. “So your dad is your only family left.”

Mac’s jaw tightens. “Technically,” he says, and he can hear that his voice is not as casual as he wants it to be. Maybe continuing to talk about his family was not a good idea.

And Jill, who is not an idiot, quickly diverts the conversation in a safer direction. “I have a pretty big family,” she volunteers. “Not immediate family—that’s just me and my mom—but I have a whole bunch of cousins. My whole childhood, we’d drive every summer out to my grandpa’s ranch in Idaho for this big family reunion. The drive was terrible but the food was delicious. I have an aunt who can cook literally anything in a dutch oven. It’s really impressive, actually.”

Gratefully accepting the new topic, Mac challenges, “Could she make cookies?”

“Oh, you’d have to go a lot more exotic than cookies if you expect to come up with something Aunt Sam can’t cook over a fire.”

“I tried to make a Dutch oven once,” he says after a moment. “Back when I was too young to realize it’s probably important to clean junkyard metal off before you cook on it.”

“Sounds like a disease waiting to happen.”

“Most of my childhood was a disease waiting to happen. Or a horrible accident waiting to happen.”

“I’m glad you still have all your fingers,” she says solemnly.

They’re in safer waters now, and they watch the old people do tai chi as the evening deepens into night, and Mac’s surprised to find himself more at peace than he usually is when he thinks about his parents. It was good to talk about it, to be honest; he likes ignoring certain chunks of his past, but there’s a comfort in taking those memories out and examining them every now and then.

So when the evening is over and they’re walking into the metro station and Jill apologizes for being nosy earlier, Mac means it very sincerely when he tells her that it’s all right. Because there are worse things than a nice girl wanting to hear about your mother.

o.o.o

Before Mac knows it, they are entering the third and final week of Jill’s visit, and he is surprisingly morose about her impending departure. There’s a part of him that thinks maybe that’s a sign it’s time to start considering going back to LA, but there’s a larger part of him that can’t quite bring himself to make that decision. LA means home, and Bozer and Jack and Riley, but LA also means his father once again putting his unwanted hands into every part of Mac’s life.

So instead he focuses on the here and now. The lab Jill has been visiting is closed on Friday, making Thursday her last day, but she doesn’t fly out until Sunday, and he has an idea.

“My neighbor, the one I helped with the refrigerator, has a motorcycle he says he’ll lend me for the weekend,” he says over strawberry baobing during their third visit to what they’re jokingly starting to refer to as “their bing place.” “How would you feel about taking a trip down the coast? See some of the countryside outside Taipei?”

It turns out that Jill feels great about that; her guidebooks have waxed poetic about the beautiful sites of Taiwan’s eastern coast, and she’s been longing to see them. “Although I hear the road can get a little scary—narrow and winding, with steep drops to the ocean.”

Mac just chuckles. “The last time I was riding a motorcycle, it was to evade a gun runner’s hired goons in the mountains of Pakistan. I’m not too worried about a coastal road.” Something occurs to him, and he adds, “I hope you don’t mind riding on the back of a motorcycle. Wenshan only has the one for us to borrow.” Because if it hasn’t occurred to her yet . . . well, sharing a bike requires a little more physical contact than the two of them have had so far. Which he definitely doesn’t mind, he just doesn’t want her to be uncomfortable.

But Jill just airily responds “No problem, I’ve ridden on the back of my cousin Dave’s motorcycle a lot. One of the Idaho cousins.”

And that’s officially decided.

So Mac pulls up in front of her building on Friday morning, ready for an adventure. Wenshan’s bike turned out to be a maxi scooter, not a proper motorcycle, but it’s got a 530 cc engine, a comfortable seat for Jill, and storage under the seat for their clothes (provided they pack pretty light), so Mac’s not complaining. In fact he’s more excited about this weekend than he’s been about anything since he came to Taiwan, and maybe even before that.

Because, a weekend bike trip in the summer sun? This is just the sort of thing he always wants to do but rarely has time for; as he waits for Jill, he is suddenly reminded that he and Nikki talked for two years about how someday they were going to take a long motorcycle trip up and down the Pacific coast, but that they hadn’t gotten around to it by the time she faked her death. So it’s nice he’s finally getting to—

Mac blinks in surprise.

What is he thinking? What he and Nikki wanted was a romantic getaway, enjoying the beautiful ocean views while she wrapped her arms around his waist. That is not remotely what’s happening here. Because this is just Jill, a coworker and now a friend but not a girlfriend, even if his heart does lift a little when she comes out of her hotel and bounds down the stairs with a megawatt smile. It’s just that she is so cheerful, and it has a way of rubbing off on him, and he finds himself increasingly glad to see her as time goes by.

But even he can’t deny that he rather likes the feeling of her settling onto the bike behind him, with her knees bracketing his hips and her hands resting lightly on his waist. And he has to resist the urge to accelerate just a bit too fast as they pull away from the curb, which would have forced her to grab onto him tighter to stay upright—a trick he hasn’t pulled with a cute girl since high school.

It’s just that this is the most physical contact he’s had with another person since he left LA, and the most physical contact he’s had with a cute girl since . . . geez, it’s been ages. Point is, it’s making him way more reactive than is reasonable to Jill touching him. That’s all, he tells himself.

(His assertion would be easier to believe if some traitorous part of him weren’t suddenly thrilled to realize that over the next three days, they’ll be spending hours in just this position. But he’ll deal with that thought later.)

(Anyway, it turns out the forcing-Jill-to-hold-him-tighter trick isn’t necessary, because once they’re on the road, she ends up leaning forward and holding onto him a little tighter of her own accord, and he chooses to believe that it’s because she’s growing more comfortable with him, not because she’s terrified of his driving.)

o.o.o

In an hour they have left the city and are pulling over at the first site in Jill’s guidebook, a beautiful coastline dotted with fanciful rock formations. The spot’s gorgeous, with mountainous jungle behind them and stunningly blue water in front, and even the presence of about a thousand other tourists can’t ruin the moment. They spend a happy half-hour wandering over the rocks, Jill and her ever-present camera snapping about a thousand pictures.

As has become their habit, they get a picture of the two of them together, and when they head back to where they’ve parked, Jill snaps a picture of Mac with the bike. There’s a wistful little smile on her face when she lowers the camera, and it occurs to him for the first time that she might miss him as much as he’ll miss her when she leaves.

Nearby there’s a spot where they can hike along the coastline, which is delightful except that the midday sun is brutal, the trail is hilly, and Mac realizes he isn’t as in shape as he was when he worked for the Phoenix Foundation. So he’s relieved when they pass a covered wooden pavilion and Jill suggests they stop for a rest.

“This is unreal,” says Jill, who’s snapping picture after picture of the coastline winding into the distance, all verdant hills dropping sharply into the sea. “I can’t believe that in three days I’m going to be back at my desk. After three weeks out here I feel like I barely remember my real life.”

“I know the feeling,” says Mac without thinking, and it’s only when Jill glances thoughtfully over at him that he really thinks about what he said. “But then I guess I make a point of not remembering my life back in LA.”

A look of concern crosses Jill’s face: furrowed brow, pursed lips. She opens her mouth, and then closes it again.

“Go ahead and say it,” Mac says, “whatever it is.” She’s been remarkably understanding, these last few weeks, with his avoidance of any talk about future plans, but he understands her curiosity, and anyway she’s leaving soon. So.

“How long are you going to stay away?” she asks finally. “I mean, is it ‘do some thinking and then come home,’ or is this your life now? Are you done with LA?”

Mac sighs and rubs a hand across his face. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I’ve been thinking about it for a month and a half, and I still don’t know. I miss LA. I miss my house, and Bozer and Jack and Riley.”

“But?” she prompts.

“But my father,” he says simply. Her expression says that she doesn’t entirely understand—makes sense, she only knows the bare details of the story—but he can’t quite talk about it just now. “I’m hungry,” he says, glancing at his watch—they ate early, and now it’s after 12. “We ready to move on?”

She accepts his avoidance of the topic graciously, but he keeps thinking about it as they hike back the way they came, as they eat at a nearby restaurant, as they hop on the scooter and head down the coast to Yilan City. In Yilan they check into a hotel (a mom-and-pop place chosen partly for its charm and partly because they’re both on a budget) and take a drive into the foothills to see some beautiful waterfalls.

Then, with time to kill before dinner, they take a very long route back, around the outskirts of Yilan, where the bustle of the city gives way to vast stretches of fields and trees; Mac teaches Jill how to ride the scooter (carefully, obviously, as it’s a loaner and he doesn’t want to return a dinged scooter to Wenshan). She’s an eager and apt student, with a tendency to laugh rather than scowl when she makes a mistake, and it’s a very pleasant afternoon, and it occurs to him over and over again that he’s going to be a bit sorry when she leaves.

When Jill is tired of driving the scooter, Mac takes over again and they drive through endless rice paddies and fields, dotted with trees and tall houses in that peculiarly Taiwanese style. The sun is inching toward the mountains, lessening the heat of the day, and the breeze feels soothing against his skin and the countryside is too green to be real and Jill is sitting just a little bit closer than she was before, and he can’t remember when he’s had such a perfect moment.

“You still have questions, I think, about my dad,” he finds himself saying when they’ve stopped for a moment so Jill can snap pictures of a little Buddhist temple on the side of the road. It’s just that he’s been thinking since this morning about how he pushed aside her questions, and he doesn’t want to be rude. It’s just that it’s suddenly very important to him that Jill understands why he’s staying away—that he isn’t throwing a childish tantrum, and he and his father aren’t having a simple family squabble. It’s just that it’s suddenly very important that she not think badly of him.

Jill looks surprised, but recovers enough to nod. “I _have_ been wondering—I get not coming back to the Phoenix, since things are a little weird with your dad. But why not come back to LA and work somewhere else? Your house is in LA, your friends are in LA . . . and you’re a smart guy, you could get a cool job outside the Phoenix Foundation.”

There’s a little wooden bench nearby, and he sits down, carefully only taking up one half of it. She accepts the unspoken invitation and sits down next to him; the bench is small enough that the side of her leg is brushing the side of his, but it doesn’t seem to bother her and he certainly doesn’t mind. “It’s not just ‘a little weirdness’ with my dad,” he says, and then he tells her everything.

Everything, starting from the day his mom died and ending on the day he quit. Jill listens with her sympathetic face painted golden by the warmth of the sinking sun, as he tells her about feeling abandoned and alone while his dad knew perfectly well where he was and never once reached out to his lonely son. He tells her how James MacGyver sat in the shadows and pulled the strings to manipulate and control the outcome of every major event and decision in Mac’s life.

“Honestly, I suspect your being here was his doing too. I tried to keep where I was going a secret, but, I mean, he’s Oversight. So I assume he knows where I am. So when a lab tech he knows I was friendly with requests to go to Taipei . . .”

Jill looks stricken. “I didn’t even . . . Mac, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

And without thinking, he finds himself reaching over to grab her hand. “Don’t apologize,” he says. “If it’s true, then it happened without your knowing. We’re all just pawns in this massive spy game he’s always playing.” He squeezes her hand once, for comfort and emphasis, and then lets go because what the heck is he doing, holding Jill’s hand?

Jill blinks at him for a moment, but recovers quickly. “Wow,” she says softly. “I think I understand a little better now.”

“Yeah,” Mac agrees, and ignores the fact that his now-unoccupied hand suddenly feels a little cold. “You see why I don’t want to go back? If I’m back in his sphere of influence, maybe he’ll pull strings again to get me pulled back into the Phoenix Foundation. I just . . . don’t want him to have that kind of power over my life again.”

“I totally get that,” she says, then pauses. “But are you sure he would? I mean, I don’t really know the guy, so if you say he would, I believe you. You’re pretty positive he would ignore the boundaries that you’ve now set?”

“Not at all,” Mac admits. “I’ve wondered about that. He controlled my life from behind the scenes when I didn’t know, when he could tell himself it was what was best for me. But now that I know and I’ve expressed how I feel about all this, maybe he’d stop. Maybe he hasn’t completely lost all sense of what constitutes appropriate behavior.” He sighs and leans forward, his elbows dropping to his knees. “The problem is, I don’t know this guy. I never did, as it turns out, and it’s been years since I had any kind of regular contact with him so I know him even less now. So I have no idea if he’s likely to respect my wishes, now that I’ve told him pretty clearly that I don’t want to work with him.”

Jill nods. “What does Jack think? He went on that mission with you guys; he had time to get a good read on Oversight.”

“We didn’t talk about it,” Mac admits. “He helped me pack a bag and I just left.”

“And you haven’t talked about it since then?”

He shrugs. “Actually we haven’t talked about anything since then.”

Jill’s eyes widen. “You haven’t called Jack once since you came to Taipei? Mac _Gy_ ver! No wonder he’s been so out of sorts lately.”

“Out of sorts?”

“Yeah, ever since you left he’s been . . . quieter. Less exuberant. Kinda sad. I figured it was just because his best friend was gone, but I’m sure the fact that you _haven’t even called him_ isn’t helping. He’s probably spent the last month wondering if he’s ever going to see you again.”

Well, shoot. Mac hasn’t even thought about it that way; he’s been so focused on his own issues, his own grief, that he hasn’t spared much thought for how his loved ones back home are feeling. But Jill’s probably right. He’s not worried about Bozer, who’s accustomed to Mac disappearing for months at a time. But Jack . . . “I didn’t really think about that,” he admits, his brow furrowed. “He told me to take as much time as I need, and not to worry about the rest of them, and he seemed so . . . and I just took him at his word. And I haven’t . . .”

“I’m sure he meant it,” Jill says. “And he’s right, you should take the time you need to work through things. But don’t cut yourself off from the people who love you while you do it. They can support you. And they deserve to know if, you know, you ever plan on coming home again.”

Mac nods, still slouched over with his elbows on his knees, and runs an agitated hand through his hair. She’s right, he’s been so self-absorbed lately—

But his self-castigation is cut off abruptly when he feels a hand settle gently on his shoulder. “I don’t mean to scold,” Jill says softly. “I know you’re dealing with a lot right now.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, his gaze still on the ground. “I needed to hear that.” He finds himself holding very, very still—barely even letting himself breathe—out of some half-conscious fear that if he moves too much, she’ll remove her hand.

Jill hesitates a moment, while Mac sits there, not breathing, and then she shifts the hand she has on his shoulder to start rubbing his back comfortingly. “I am sorry you’ve been dealing with so much because of your dad,” she says quietly.

But Mac barely hears, so focused is he on that hand, which is trailing goosebumps and awareness everywhere it moves across his back. It’s amazing how something can be simultaneously so relaxing and so unsettling—but, a good kind of unsettling. A he-doesn’t-want-it-to-end sort of unsettling.

It does end, unfortunately, when Jill points out that it’s nearly seven and they should probably get going; they’re still at least a half-hour from the Luodong night market, where they intend to get dinner and spend the evening. Mac agrees but is secretly glad that this means Jill has to climb on the back of the scooter and put her hands on his waist. And he finds himself finding excuses to touch her for the rest of the night—helping her down from the scooter, and tapping her shoulder to draw her attention so he can offer her some of the meat skewer he bought for dinner. The night market is massively crowded, as would be expected on a summer weekend, and once they’ve eaten and are wandering around browsing the stalls, they get separated twice before Mac gives into what, he swears, is only good sense, and grabs her hand.

“So we don’t get separated,” he calls over the roar of the crowd when she turns back to look at him in surprise.

Understanding lightens her eyes, and she tightens her grip as they dive back into the crowd so she can check out some adorable cartoon panda slippers.

But the truth is, that was at least partially a lie. The truth is, he’s also holding her hand because he likes the feel of her hand in his—warm and dry and a little callused. He’s never liked girls with too-soft hands; he always figures that hands that aren’t at least a little beat up are hands are never used for anything interesting. So he likes Jill’s hands; he likes the way she tugs on his when she’s dragging him over to examine some trinket or snack, and the way she’ll look back at him when she does so with this expression of pure excitement over whatever has caught her eye. And he has to firmly remind himself to let go when they leave the crowds to go back to their hotel.

But at least there he gets to hug her good night before she goes back to her room. And he finds himself standing and looking at her closed door for just a moment too long before he pulls himself away and heads back to his room.

o.o.o

Okay, so it appears that maybe Mac has developed a little bit of a . . . an infatuation, one might say, with Miss Morgan. Nothing major, he just . . . likes touching her. He likes her company. He likes her voice. He likes her brilliant mind and her endlessly positive attitude.

It’s understandable, he thinks, and even inevitable, when two people spend so much time together (and when that time together includes sightseeing and posing for pictures together and sitting really very close to each other on a scooter). It’s understandable, and it will probably fade quickly once she’s gone back to the United States.

He’s not sure whether he finds that thought to be a relief or not.

o.o.o

On Saturday they have very little time to talk, at least at first; they wake up early and hop on the scooter to travel a couple hours down the coast to see the famous Taroko Gorge. It’s the perfect day for it, with cloud cover cutting down the heat and saturating all the colors in the countryside around them. They travel along the cliffs of the coastal road, and then turn up into the gorge, where they stop several times to take hikes or scenic walks.

Perhaps the hand-holding yesterday has broken through a barrier, because Jill’s a lot more comfortable touching him today: tugging his arm to go look at some scenic view or interesting plant; putting her arm around him for pictures, standing closer to him than she did yesterday. He wonders if this is normal for her, and she finally feels that they’re at ease with each other enough to allow this sort of informality.

Either way he doesn’t mind it. No, he doesn’t mind a bit, and in fact finds himself following suit, and every time they touch he’s sorry again to think of her leaving, and would it be weird if he kissed her? It’d be weird, right?

Yes, he reminds himself several times, it would be weird. Because she’s going back to California tomorrow, and he’s not. And because he suspects that part of the reason he is suddenly feeling this way _is_ the very fact that she’s leaving. This infatuation, he believes, is a result of her being the only familiar face he’s seen in nearly two months now, and his sudden willingness to act on it is a result of knowing that they’ll be an ocean apart soon, which would make any such connection a safe option by virtue of the fact that it can only last for a day. It would just be one of those vacation romances, which he’s never really done himself but which, he’s heard, happen all the time.

So he’s not going to kiss her, because his emotions are already a bit of a mess and he’s already super indecisive about what he’s going to do next, and he doesn’t need to muddy the waters by throwing romance into the mix. Besides, what if he started something, and then decided to return to California, and then realized that he was right and that this little crush on Jill is just loneliness speaking? That’s not fair to her, and would be very uncomfortable for him.

So he ignores the little voice in his head that’s urging him to pull her closer, and he ignores the knowing look that an older white couple gives them when they stop for photos in front of the famous shrine in the gorge—a look that clearly says the couple is reminiscing about their own days of young love.

He wonders if Jill notices; he wonders if she cares. He’s been wondering that all weekend, actually: does she notice how . . . couple-y this has all been looking? It’s hard to say, really; mostly she just acts like they’re best friends and this is all normal, but every now and then he catches the tail end of a look from her that makes him wonder if she’s also noticed just how cozy the outing has become.

And he wonders what she’d do if he did try to kiss her, or at least to do something to express interest. She’s enthusiastically fond of him, he knows, but then she’s enthusiastically fond of a lot of things, including cherry 7Up and Grant Imahara, so he’s not sure what that proves. Though on the other hand, he’s pretty sure he’s caught her checking him out a couple times. He’s not brilliant at knowing what the opposite sex is thinking, but—without meaning to brag—he knows he’s a good-looking guy, and he knows when he’s being checked out.

But what does any of that mean? That’s what he’s not sure about.

In the afternoon they start on their way back to the hotel, stopping at a famous viewpoint Jill’s guidebook recommends. The clouds have cleared, and the jewel-toned vista before him, with the green cliffs rising from the vivid turquoise water, is stunning; Mac’s not a scenery enthusiast—that’s all Jill—but even he finds himself mesmerized by the sight.

Jill, as is usual, snaps about a hundred pictures before snagging a passerby and putting her arm around Mac’s waist to get a picture of them together. But in a break from the usual, she doesn’t move her arm once she’s gotten her camera back; she checks the picture, her megawatt smile on the viewfinder matching the one currently on her face, and then she unexpectedly throws her other arm around Mac, pulling him close and resting her head against his chest.

Automatically his arms wrap themselves around her. “What’s this for?” he asks, surprised but not displeased, and unable to keep himself from noticing that their height difference is just right for her to tuck her head under his chin.

Which doesn’t matter, obviously.

“This has been the most amazing day,” she says against his chest. “And the most amazing road trip. And the most amazing three weeks.”

She breaks the contact somewhat when she leans back to look at him, which he certainly doesn’t immediately regret, but keeps her arms around his waist, which he certainly doesn’t appreciate. “Thank you for making this the best work trip I’ve ever had,” she says. “I could have gone all these places alone, but it wouldn’t have been half as fun.” She hesitates. “I know having an old co-worker just randomly show up when you were trying to keep a low profile was the opposite of what you wanted—”

And this time it’s Mac who pulls Jill into a hug. “I’m really glad we ran into each other that day,” he says. “It might not have been what I wanted right then, but it was definitely what I needed. I don’t think I’d noticed how lonely I was until you showed up.”

She steps out of the hug but stays close, looking up into his eyes. “Have you been lonely?” she asks quietly.

He shrugs. “I like being alone. And I’m pretty good at getting lost in my own head when I start on a project. So I didn’t really notice it at first, but . . .” He punctuates with a shrug.

Jill gives him a thoughtful look, but Mac doesn’t find out what she’s thinking until hours later, when they’ve returned from their ride and Mac has insisted on treating her to a very nice farewell dinner at one of the fancier restaurants in town (both of them looking entirely out of place in their tourist wear) and then they’ve found themselves on the patio of a very charming bar and discussed science and engineering for hours as the dusk deepens to night and the stars twinkle above the ocean.

Late in the evening, during a lull in the conversation in which Mac starts to dread the moment one of them inevitably suggests they should head back to the hotel—early start in the morning—Jill suddenly speaks. “I’m going home tomorrow.”

Yes, and Mac’s more sorry about that fact with every minute that passes.

“So I’m going to go ahead and say something you might be really mad at me for, because it’s not like we have to keep a civil relationship for the sake of work—it’s not like we ever have to see each other again, if we don’t want to.”

Intrigued, he raises his eyebrows.

She takes a bracing breath, then says in a rush, “Would it be the worst thing in the world to reconcile with your father?”

His expression falls.

“Maybe it would be,” she’s quick to add. “And if it would be, great, fine, you keep doing what you’re doing. I absolutely would not hold that against you, because only you know exactly what he’s put you through.”

“But?” Mac prompts slowly.

Jill looks down at their table for a moment, and in the soft glow of the patio lights, he sees her brow furrow. “Your dad is a tool,” she says. “That’s just a fact. Even if you hadn’t told me all that stuff about him, it’d be clear from the one time I met him—superficially charming and persuasive but there’s this arrogance and self-centeredness lurking beneath.”

It is quite validating and strangely cathartic to hear someone as cheerful and level-headed as Jill insulting his father so confidently, as though the tool-ness of James MacGyver is just a universally accepted truth. “I don’t disagree.”

She lifts a hand to her eyes as though to adjust her glasses—a common tic he’s noticed in her—then apparently remembers she’s not wearing any. “But he is your father.”

His brow lowers a little, and she quickly adds, “Which doesn’t have to matter, if you don’t want it to. I’m just saying, be sure you’re sure you don’t want it to matter.” She grimaces. “Geez, this all sounded so much better in my head.” She takes a moment to collect herself, sitting up straighter in her chair. “It’s just . . . my dad died when I was eleven. And he wasn’t perfect—I mean, he was nothing on your dad, but still—but I would give anything to have more time with him. And I just keep thinking . . . I don’t want you to have regrets later, once it’s too late, that you never reconciled with him.”

“That doesn’t seem too likely right now.”

“And if you’re sure about that, if you’d genuinely prefer not to reconcile with him, I will support that choice, 100%. I’d just want you to be sure, really sure, that you’re happy to miss your chance to reconcile with your only living relative.”

Part of him wants to be annoyed that she’s poking at a wound that hasn’t healed yet, but the sincerity of her voice and the sadness in her eyes when she spoke of her father make him thoughtful instead, and he sighs. “I’m . . . 95% sure,” he says, dragging his hand down his face. “But now that you mention it—yeah, I’ve . . . wondered, a couple times. I mean, I spent all my life looking for my dad, and now that he’s here . . . ten-year-old me would not believe the way I’m behaving.” He sighs. “But then ten-year-old me didn’t understand a lot of things.”

“It’s complicated,” she says quietly. “I know it’s so complicated, and I’m not here to tell you what to do. Just . . . keep asking yourself these sorts of questions, okay? Don’t get so stuck in your opinions and your decisions that you refuse to ever consider anything else. Be open to the possibility that you might change your mind and want to spend time with your dad in the future. Plus, you're lonely here, and if this thing with your dad is what's keeping you from going back to LA . . .”

Jill is so wise, and she gives the best advice, and she’s never looked as beautiful as she does tonight, sunburned and windswept, in a t-shirt and shorts with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. But that might be the beer talking.

“That’s . . . worth thinking about,” he says quietly. “Thanks.”

“So you’re not mad at me for bringing it up?”

“Of course not; you’re just worried about me, and you do make some good points. I will think about what you said.”

She breaks out in a relieved smile that is warmed by the cozy glow of the globe lights strung over their heads, and the breeze that curls between them smells like the sea, and he misses her already, and he wishes the night would last forever, and he briefly considers asking her to miss her flight tomorrow and just stay in this bar with him until they die of old age. But that’s definitely the beer talking.

“I just want you to be happy,” she says, and there’s something wistful in her eyes, and maybe if he weren’t a bit tipsy he would be able to identify it. But as it is, the look remains a mystery.

o.o.o

They wake early to get Jill back to Taipei in time for her flight. There’s a faster way back, via a mountain tunnel, but Jill wants to enjoy the scenery, and Mac doesn’t mind prolonging the trip, so they take the long way along the coast, and make the drive the last part of their weekend getaway; Mac spends the trip trying to imprint these moments on his memory, and trying not to think about how soon it’ll be over.

But it is over, all too soon; before he knows it they are pulling up in front of Jill’s university housing. Mac’s glad that he has to stand so she can get her bag from the under-seat storage, because it makes it easier to pull her into a hug.

“This has been the best trip,” she says into his shoulder. “The best. Thank you.”

“I’ll miss you,” he says. “It’s been fun having a friend in the city,” he adds, which is about one-tenth of the sentiment he’d like to express, but is all he’s willing to say right now.

She leans back and gives him a little half-smile, her eyes soft, and suddenly he feels like he’s been too casual, like he should admit just how sad he is to see her go. “I’ll miss you too.”

“You’re sure you don’t need a ride to the airport?”

She shoots a skeptical look at the scooter, their trusty companion for the last two and a half days. “You think we can carry my luggage on that thing?”

Mac laughs, admitting she’s right, and she shakes her head. “Dr. Wu arranged a car for me. But thanks.”

He nods.

“But you know,” she says, “if you’re feeling like doing a good deed, there is something you can do for me.”

“Of course, just name it.”

She smiles. “Call Jack.”

Mac laughs, and she insists, “I mean it. You know you’re like a son to him, right? Although he’d probably think that was a dig at his age and insist you’re more like a little brother.”

And Mac remembers when, just before he quit the Phoenix Foundation, he told Jack that he should have realized that all the family he really needs has been in front of his face all along, and he feels guilty, once again, for having been so caught up in himself that he neglected to reach out to the people who love him. “I will call him,” he says. “Bozer too. I promise.”

A soft, pleased smile crosses her face. “Good.” She hesitates. “And I know you’re still trying to fly under the radar. But if you ever have a chance to—I mean . . . let’s stay in touch?” she finishes uncertainly. Understandable, given his situation.

But he smiles at her. “Yeah,” he agrees.

She hugs him again, and he wonders if he’s just imagining that it’s a bit tighter than last time. And then she smiles at him, and then Jill Morgan is walking into the building and out of his life.

o.o.o

By the time he’s filled up the scooter’s gas tank, done a quick mechanical check, and returned it to Wenshan, it’s eleven PM in California, but Jack’s usually up late. So Mac pulls out the special untraceable phone given to him by Riley and, slowly at first and then with increasing speed, dials the number written on the piece of paper before him.

“Hello?” Jack’s voice is half suspicious, half hopeful, and so wonderfully familiar to Mac that his knees nearly give out.

But he forces his voice to stay steady. “Hey, Jack.”

The breathless way that Jack says “Hey, buddy!” is so joyful and relieved that Mac feels like a massive hand is squeezing his chest. And now his legs do give out, and he slides down the wall that he’s been leaning against, sitting right on the floor in the middle of his bare apartment with his knees drawn up to his chest.

And, hearing the voice of the closest thing he has to real family in this world, and finally understanding how much Jack has missed and worried about him, Mac finds himself blurting out a lengthy, inelegant apology for not calling. About three sentences in, Jack starts crying, and now Mac is crying, even as he laughs at the mental image of two former spies and soldiers, sitting on either end of a telephone line and weeping like children.

Jack has noticed it too: “Look at us,” he laughs. “How is it you always turn me into a crybaby?” He is extremely forgiving of Mac’s failure to call, but clearly thrilled and relieved to finally hear from him, and Mac kicks himself again for taking so long.

He tells Jack where he’s been, and some of what he’s been up to; for reasons he cannot explain to himself, he leaves out Jill’s visit. In return, Jack fills him in on the details back home: Bozer is thrilled to have his girlfriend at the Phoenix, and Leanna has quickly integrated herself into the agency and Bozer’s social life; on a more somber note, Jack and Riley have been split up and assigned to other teams for the time being. What Jack does not say, but Mac understands, is that Oversight is holding off on replacing Mac with a new scientist, hoping that his son will return to the Phoenix.

Jack asks nothing about Mac’s return, and Mac volunteers no information.

That phone call turns out to be the beginning of the end of his time in Taiwan; the very next day he finds himself calling Jack again, eager to hear his voice. This time they talk about inconsequential things; they both saw the new Dwayne Johnson movie about the skyscraper, and they spend a cheerful half-hour dissecting the movie and comparing it to their own skyscraper adventure in Shanghai. And then he talks to Bozer for a while.

And then the very next day, he calls again.

By the fourth day in a row that he’s called Jack, Mac admits to himself that he’s ready to go home.

o.o.o

Jack’s been telling him about how Jane—you know, that lab tech with the glasses—informed him at work that he owed her for roping her into that break-in, and that he was going to repay her by teaching her to box. “I mean, she’ll never be Ann Wolfe,” says Jack with amusement and admiration in his voice, “but she actually throws a pretty good punch.”

“I believe it,” Mac says, and is glad Jack can’t see him to ask why the smile on his face has suddenly turned so wistful and fond. He was right: he misses her. Turns out he’d gotten very accustomed to having company in Taipei. And he doesn’t bother thinking any deeper than that about his motivations, because he’s already feeling a bit emotionally fragile right now.

Jack hesitates. “Piece of sad news, though,” he says, and Mac straightens up. “Riley—I told you we got assigned to different teams?—Riley really doesn’t like her new team. And that new boyfriend of hers asked her to move to Louisiana a little while ago, and, well, she’s thinking about it. Pretty seriously.”

There’s a moment of shocked silence while Mac processes this. He knew the team would be no more when he left the Phoenix, but it didn’t really sink in until now. And it breaks his heart to think of Riley leaving, to think of Jack without his surrogate daughter around—especially because any way you slice it, this is his doing. If he hadn’t left the Phoenix, the team wouldn’t have started to crumble. And yet . . .

And yet, as sad as it is, this was always going to happen eventually, right? People in his (former) line of work don’t do the same thing forever; for a whole variety of reasons, they can’t. He’s always known that eventually he or Jack or Riley would get assigned somewhere new, or retired from the field (or worse, which he carefully never thinks about). Maybe it’s good, if this is what Riley wants, for her to be able to get out of the game on her own terms, and settle down with a guy she clearly cares a lot about. And Jack will have to learn to live with it; if he thinks of Riley as a daughter, then he has to deal with the reality that children don’t always stay put. They grow up and they get jobs and they fall in love and they move.

But that doesn’t mean that all children do that. That doesn’t mean that Jack has to be alone.

“Jack,” he says quietly, “I’m not coming back to the Phoenix Foundation. Not any time soon. I can’t.”

There’s a whooshing sound on the other end of the phone: Jack blowing out a noisy sigh. “I kinda suspected that.”

“But Jack,” Mac presses on, “I think I’m ready to come home.”

There’s a moment of silence where Mac can almost feel Jack’s massive grin through the phone. “Brother,” he says, “that’s the best news I’ve heard all year.”

o.o.o

One week later Mac is stepping through the front door of his grandfather’s house in LA, an experience that is a little surreal. On the one hand, entering that house is such a familiar experience that it’s like he never left, like Taiwan is a dream he just woke up from. On the other hand, he’s been gone so long that the house feels a little strange—like the door frame is just a hair wider than it used to be, like walls have been moved just an inch to the side.

But one thing is absolutely familiar: Bozer’s massive grin as he throws his arms around his best friend. Jack, following with Mac’s luggage, says fondly, “Look at this, the boys back together.”

Riley is there too, waiting to greet him with a hug of her own; she’s put off her decision about moving for the time being, admitting that as much as she enjoys Billy’s company, she prefers California to Louisiana. She’s considering trying to talk Billy into coming out to LA for a while instead.

And that’s the whole group; Mac assumes they’re trying not to overwhelm him. It’s been clear since that fateful phone call that Jack’s been handling Mac with kid gloves, trying to avoid doing anything that could send him off to the other side of the world again. It’s absurd, and Mac’s definitely going to reassure him that he’s not leaving again, but it’s also sweet that he cares so much.

According to Jack and Bozer, Leanna agreed when they thought they’d keep the group to the core four for this first get-together; apparently she understood completely, and is happily getting a pedicure tonight instead. And for a variety of reasons, Matty isn’t there; Mac has every intention of getting lunch with her soon, and explaining to her that he’s not coming back to the Phoenix but that he has nothing but love and respect for her and that she handled things as well as she could have, given the circumstances.

And . . . no one else comes. Not that he expected her to.

Bozer has cooked them an amazing meal—steak and potatoes, to properly welcome the long-lost son back to America—and over the food, and later over the firepit on the back porch, Mac regales them with tales from Taipei, and at one point Bozer chuckles.

“You know what’s weird? Jill—you remember Jill—she was actually in Taipei couple weeks ago. What are the odds, right?”

“Actually,” Mac says hesitantly, “it’s even weirder than that. I actually ran into her in Taipei. I asked her not to tell you guys until I had decided whether I was coming home.”

“Seriously?” Jack asks. “I asked her about her trip while we were boxing and she didn’t hint even a bit that she saw you. When’d that girl get so good at lying?”

“So you just saw her the once?” Riley asks.

“Actually, we did a bunch of the tourist sites together. It was nice to see a familiar face, after a month of being alone out there. And actually, she was the one who convinced me to call Jack.”

Jack and Bozer don’t seem to find anything odd about this—too busy being loudly appreciative of Jill’s actions—but Riley gives him a thoughtful look.

“Well, she’ll be glad to hear you’re back, then,” says Bozer, and Mac shakes his head.

“Do you mind keeping it under wraps, just for now, that I’m back? I wanted to tell her myself.”

Again Jack sees nothing strange about this—the growing collection of empty bottles by his chair might have something to do with the lack of awareness—but now Bozer is joining Riley in examining Mac with knowing expressions.

(Later, when Riley is gathering her things to leave, Mac will ask her to hunt down Jill’s contact information for him, and she’ll give him that same knowing, amused look from earlier. He’ll say “What?”, and she’ll simply smile and say “Nothing, Jill’s a great girl,” and Mac will not even dignify that with a response because that will just fuel her suspicions that there’s something going on. She will get him the contact info, though.)

When he’s done talking about Taipei, the others tell him about life in LA. Riley and Jack don’t seem entirely thrilled with their jobs these days, but Bozer is still on cloud 9, having his girlfriend around and having permission from Matty to continue to date (as long as they keep it discreet in the workplace).

“So what about you?” Bozer asks. “What’s next for Angus MacGyver?”

Mac hesitates. “I’m . . . not coming back to the Phoenix,” he says, but Bozer and Riley don’t look disappointed, like he’d expected.

“Jack told us,” says Riley. “We know.”

“And we don’t blame you,” Bozer adds. “What your dad did . . .” But then he hesitates, looking cautiously up at Mac. “But, do you mind that . . .”

Mac gives him his most reassuring smile. “I don’t expect you to quit out of solidarity. It’s a great job, and a great agency, and it does really good, really important work. Just because I’m not going to work there anymore doesn’t mean you can’t.”

Bozer looks relieved. “Good, ‘cause I’m really enjoying being a spy.” He hesitates. “Well, part-time spy, part-time lab tech. And I don’t know if I could get a job this cool anywhere else.”

“Plus you couldn’t work with your girlfriend anywhere else,” Riley teases. “Because I don’t think she’s going to give up being a spy any time soon.”

“True,” Bozer agrees with a beatific smile, and Mac is glad that his oldest friend has found so much happiness.

“I know you’re still up in the air,” Mac says to Riley. “But what about you, Jack? You sticking around?”

Jack takes a swig of his beer. “Well, I been trying to avoid putting too much pressure on you, but since you asked: I been waitin’ on you. Because where you go, I go, brother. I found my calling, and it’s protecting you and your big brain. So if you take another job that puts you in danger, I’m tagging along. But if you take a cushy desk job, maybe I stay at the Phoenix, or transfer back to the CIA, and I just protect you on weekends when we go fishing. Make sure none of them trout attack.”

Mac ducks his head so that no one sees the grin that he feels certain is absolutely dopey. Because no friend or family member—with apologies to his oldest friend, no, not even Bozer—has loved him like Jack does, has stuck with him like Jack does. And he’s glad, for about the fiftieth time today, to be home. “Well, I’ll let you know as soon as I know,” he promises him.

Jack cheerfully slings an arm around his shoulders, and Riley, on his other side, wraps her arms around his waist and lays her cheek against his arm. And Bozer stands to come over and engulf them all in a group hug.

Yes, coming back to LA was the right choice.

o.o.o

The next day he has lunch with Matty. She is resigned about him not coming back to the Phoenix Foundation—she knows him well enough that she believed him when he quit—and, when he hesitantly asks, she tells him that at first Oversight asked her at least once a day if she’d heard from him, but has since slowed down and now only asks her once a week.

The mental image of James MacGyver’s face filled with hope every time he asks Matty if she’s heard from his son . . . well, it mostly makes Mac angry. But there’s the tiniest shred of pity in there too, and he wonders if Jill was right, and someday in the future (maybe after some serious soul-searching and life-changing on James’ part), he’ll revise his current stance on not seeing his father. “Well, if he asks again, I’m not going to ask you to lie for me, but don’t volunteer that you saw me, all right?”

She gives him a little smile. “I can do that,” and then she adds, “Blondie.” And they trade identical nostalgic smiles.

There’s something just a little hesitant in Matty’s manner all through the meal, but Mac doesn’t understand why until, as they get up to leave, he invites her over for dinner with the gang next Saturday. Her shoulders sag in unmistakeable relief, and he realizes she feared she’d burned her bridges with the group when she did her job and kept Oversight’s secrets. The realization that she’s been living with that fear tugs at his heartstrings, and he finds himself dropping to his knees to hug her, right there in the restaurant, and she looks a little embarrassed but she hugs him back just as tightly.

He starts his job search that afternoon and has a new job in about a minute; there’s a guy he met at a local makerspace six months ago who was so impressed with Mac’s knowledge and skills that he promised him a job if he ever wanted one. The guy, who runs a non-profit that develops low-cost solutions to fix basic housing and hygiene problems in third-world countries, remembers Mac and is delighted to offer him a position. The pay isn’t brilliant—though it wasn’t brilliant at the Phoenix Foundation either—but he feels really good about the work he’ll be doing there, and it’s right up his alley: finding solutions to problems using parts that are already laying around. Even better, he knows the job offer has nothing to do with his dad.

So that’s all the loose ends tied up, except one.

Mac’s been thinking about Jill since he decided to return to LA. On the one hand, one of the reasons he didn’t try anything back in Taiwan was that she was going home and they’d be separated by the Pacific Ocean. So now that they’re back in the same city . . .

On the other hand, he’s honestly still not certain whether any interest he felt back in Taiwan was just because she was literally the only single girl he’d interacted with in a month and a half, or because she was the only familiar thing in a month and a half of living with the unknown. Maybe back in LA, surrounded by endless choices, his attraction to her will fade. Maybe he’ll see her back in the city, back in their old habitat, and he’ll feel nothing for her but friendship.

So the obvious conclusion is: he needs to see her. Maybe it’ll be nothing but a friendly reunion between friends. Maybe it’ll be more. But he’ll never know until he sees her.

Before he can decide precisely how he wants to contact her, though, he gets a text from Bozer, the day after his lunch with Matty.

_Bozer: Hey so tonight we’re going to that pizza place with the arcade that Jack likes so much. You in?_

_Bozer: Jill’s coming too so if you were looking for a chance to tell her you’re back in town . . ._

That’s fortuitous. Mac replies in the affirmative and makes arrangements to meet the group there, then spends the next hour trying on every shirt in his closet before he gives up and goes back to the one he’s been wearing all day.

And that fidgety feeling, quiet but insistent in his bones, stays with him until he’s sitting at the usual table and the group from the Phoenix Foundation is walking through the door.

The feeling doesn’t go away then. It just gets worse.

Jill’s expression is so cheerful that a person might be forgiven for thinking that it couldn’t possibly get any brighter, but when she sees him standing from the table, her face lights up like a firework. “Mac!” she exclaims. “You’re . . . here! In the country!”

She steps forward, and he steps forward, and that’s as far as they get. He’d like to hug her—they got very comfortable hugging in Taiwan—but it’s different here, back home, surrounded by familiar sights, and with their friends and coworkers filing in the door behind her. And he thinks she feels that too, based on the way she opens her mouth, and then closes it, and then simply smiles and says “Welcome back.”

Well, that’s a missed opportunity.

But she does ask herself about his decision to come back to the US, as they’re seating themselves at the table. “Well,” Mac says with a little smile meant only for her, “I decided to call Jack.”

“I hear I have you to thank for that,” Jack says to Jill. “And I totally owe you. You want boxing lessons? I’ll give you boxing lessons for a year.”

“Good,” grins Jill. “Turns out I really like punching stuff.”

Matty smirks. “Jack’s teaching you boxing? Just make sure you run everything he’s teaching you by another agent before you take anything he tells you as gospel. Since his usual fighting style is ‘everything but the kitchen sink.’”

“Hey, it works, don’t it?” Jack grins fondly at Matty, then heads up to the counter to order their pizza.

“So how long have you been back?” asks Jill.

“Only two days,” says Mac, and she nods, and that’s kind of the last chance that they really have to talk, just the two of them, because Bozer plants himself in the seat next to Mac and throws an arm around his shoulders.

“It is so good to see you back here, man. I was starting to think we’d never see your shining face back in this grimy arcade.”

“It’s not grimy, it’s classic!” yells Jack from the counter.

Bozer laughs, and he and Leanna pull Mac into a conversation, and Riley and Matty pull Jill into a conversation, and dinner goes on.

Truth be told, it’s a slightly weird evening. Although Mac’s certainly still part of the group—he’s the reason half these people know each other—he’s no longer part of the Phoenix Foundation and privy to all the details of their missions. So every now and then one of them stumbles into a topic that causes them to stop, and back up, and choose another path.

But that aside, things go pretty well. Everyone is noisily excited about Mac’s new job. Matty tells Mac that his father knows he’s back in the country but seems resigned to the idea that he isn’t returning to the Phoenix. Jack is sad to no longer be working with his best friend, but sees that there’s no use for him at Mac’s new job, so he throws an arm around Matty’s shoulders.

“I guess you’re stuck with me, boss lady.”

Her response, impossibly deadpan: “Oh, joy.”

Really, other than the job thing, it feels just like old times, only better. Because here’s Leanna, telling a funny story about the time she got lost in the Mall of America, and Bozer is just glowing as he beams at his girlfriend. Riley is looking around the group with a small smile on her face, especially when she looks at Jack, and Mac suspects that the chances of her actually going to Louisiana are not good. Jack is happy as a clam at having his little family reunited, and has challenged everyone at the table, plus the girl at the counter, to a game of Skee-Ball later. Matty’s smile still has a tendency to turn a bit wistful when she glances over at Mac, but she seems happy.

And Jill . . . it’s weird having her here, but a good weird. The sort of weird that he hopes will be repeated often in the future. She doesn’t contribute much to the conversation—it’d probably be hard trying to break into a group as close-knit as theirs—but she looks very happy to be there, and laughs at all of Jack’s dumb jokes, and sort of beams around at the whole group every so often.

And Mac could swear that smile softens, just a little, every time her gaze falls on him. For his part, he finds himself looking at Jill a lot more than is probably normal. She’s just . . . she just draws his attention, is all. She looks different than she did in Taiwan: gone are the t-shirts and ponytails, replaced by the carefully curled hair and enormous glasses and that whole sort of hot librarian vibe she has going on. And she’s just . . . really attractive. But that’s honestly not the reason he can’t keep his eyes off her. It’s her smile, her laugh, the look of general benevolence on her face, the happiness that she exudes like the sun radiates light, and he finds himself drawn to it more and more as the night goes on.

He finds himself wishing he was closer to her, so that it was easier to engage her in conversation. He finds himself wishing that their legs would accidentally brush when they moved, wishing that she was laughingly nudging him with her shoulder the way she sometimes did in Taiwan, wishing that he was casually stealing sips of her drink while she feigned outrage.

So . . . that kind of seems like the answer to his questions, right? He’s back in LA, Jill is no longer the only girl he knows, but he still wants to slip his arm around her waist and watch her turn that megawatt smile on him. He wants to . . . just date her, really, is what it boils down to.

And he should probably do something about that soon, because based on the amused look Riley is giving him, he is not being as subtle about all this as he thought.

So when the pizza is finished and Jack has dragged Riley off to the Skee-Ball machines and Matty is chatting comfortably with Bozer and Leanna, Mac catches Jill’s eye and nods at the Double Shot table. “Play me?”

“All right,” she agrees, “but you should know, I’m terrible at actual basketball but weirdly good at this game.”

And she is: she scores nearly twice as many baskets as he does.

“I did try to warn you.”

He grins back and agrees, “You did try to warn me.”

She seems in no hurry to go seek out another game, and he finds himself leaning against the side of a nearby video game console while she puts her hands in her pockets and smiles up at him. Everyone else is out of sight, and it’s the first time they’ve been alone all night.

“I’m really glad you’re back,” she says quietly. “I mean, I know you won’t be at the Phoenix Foundation so I won’t be seeing you much, but it’s just really good to see you. I’ve missed you since I came home.”

“I missed you too,” he says, and figures that he’s never going to have such a perfect opening again, plus that what she said just now was pretty good evidence that she is at least not going to be disgusted by the thought of going on a date with him. “But, you know, we can see each other outside work.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I was thinking: how about you let me buy you dinner?”

Jill glances over at the counter, where Jack paid for their pizza an hour ago, and Mac knows she’s misunderstood. “I mean, how about you let me take you to dinner. Maybe this weekend?” She still looks just a little bit politely confused, and Mac, feeling suddenly like he’s an awkward teenager again, finds himself blurting out, “Like on a date.”

Understanding floods Jill’s face—eyes widening, mouth forming an O—and then she’s having her own awkward blurting moment. “Yes,” she says, loud enough that the people walking by just then give her an odd look, and she blushes. “I mean,” she says more quietly, “yeah, I’d like that.”

There’s a weight that’s fallen off his shoulders, and he suddenly feels light as a feather. “Good,” he smiles. “Because I’ve been wanting to ask you out for a while. Probably since that afternoon I taught you to ride a scooter.”

“Good, because I’ve been wanting you to ask me out since . . . before that afternoon.” Jill looks a bit embarrassed at having just admitted that, and Mac is indeed a bit surprised, but then he finds himself grinning broadly.

“Can I get your number, then? I’ll text so we can figure out details.” Of course he already got her number from Riley, but that feels weird to admit to.

They’ve just finished doing that when Jack comes to find them. “What are you two doin’ back here? Come get some ice cream.”

So Mac and Jill follow him back to the table; Mac’s trying to play it cool, but when he glances over at Jill he sees she’s clearly fighting back a smile (and not doing a great job of it), which makes him start fighting back a smile of his own—a fact which is clearly not lost on Riley when they get back to the table; she winks at Mac and mouths the word “Finally” at him.

Jack appears with the ice cream then, effectively taking over the conversation. And everyone’s preoccupation with getting themselves a bowl gives Mac a chance to examine them all: his surrogate family, loudly happy, plus . . . whatever Jill is to him right now, and whatever he hopes she might turn out to be in the future. The sight of them fills that spot in his chest that’s felt hollow for weeks now, and he’s suddenly more thankful that he can say for whatever act of chance or fate led him and Jill to the top of the Taipei 101 at the exact same moment.

Because getting away from it all was wonderful, for a while, and things here with his father are still a bit complicated. But these people are home, and any place they are is the place he wants to be.

o.o.o

fin


End file.
